Technical advances in recent years have made video conferencing a cost effective and increasingly wide spread alternative to physical face-to-face meetings. In a typical video conference, the participants transmit and receive audio and video signals that allow all participants to hear one another, and allow each participant to see at least one of the other participants.
To efficiently transmit the large amount of video and audio information generated at a particular video conferencing site, video conferencing systems typically digitize and compress the video and audio data for transmission across digital networks. Various compression schemes are available, and various digital networks are available as well. These digital networks include the switched 56 Kbit/second digital networks offered by commercial telecommunications carriers, higher rate networks (for example those that support rates such as 384 Kbits/second), as well as other digital networks.
Because different rates, compression schemes, networks, and communications protocols (among other things) can be used, the video conferencing equipment used by each participant in a video conference must be properly configured to successfully communicate with other participants.
Once a video conference has begun, it is often desirable to adjust various components of the video conference. For example, a participant may wish to adjust the camera at a remote site, for example by panning or zooming it. As another alternative, a participant may want to mute his local camera or microphone so as to prevent others from seeing or hearing him. Or, a participant in a video conference may wish to direct a data file (or other data) to another participant, or broadcast the data file to all participants in the video conference. Each of these examples, and others, requires commands on the part of the user.
In prior art video conferencing systems, the initial configuration and subsequent control of a video conference have been performed through the use of complicated user interfaces. In particular, these user interfaces often require a fairly high technical understanding of the equipment involved, and thus are difficult to use. Furthermore, prior art user interfaces are not integrated with the video, and either obstruct the video conference or cause the user to be distracted from the video conference. Therefore, a need has arisen for a method and apparatus for a video conferencing user interface that allows for efficient and easy configuration and control of a video conference.